dying is an art
by dance-at-bougival
Summary: - did you mourn? - we all did.


**a/n:** loki visits asgard after the events of thor.

* * *

He attends his own funeral.

All the great lords and ladies of Asgard, splendid and golden, even clad in his own colours. All the great lords and ladies of Asgard, following the empty, gilded boat in a great procession to the shore.

_A funeral for a prince_, he thinks, and his hand tightens into a fist.

_A funeral for a second son_, he thinks, and his nails begin to bite.

He lets out his breath in a great rush, and with difficulty, loosens his fingers. His blood hums fast in his veins, rush rush rush and oh, oh—now they sing. Now they toss petals upon the empty boat, now they pause, now the Allfather stands—

His fingers clench, and Loki Silvertongue, the God of Magic, of Lies, of the shadow inside souls, of all the unknowns in this world and the next, _curls_. Loki Silvertongue curves his spine and inclines forward, his lips pulling away from his teeth.

The Allfather pauses, breathes, and Loki thinks, snide, _tired, are we, my king_?

The Allfather rests a hand on the empty boat, and Loki holds his breath.

"My son." Odin says finally, and the boat is aflame, drifting away.

The procession watches, and Loki waits.

His golden brother stands unmoving, that giant head bowed, large frame cowed and Loki curls his lips. Thor is a mere red and gold pinprick from this great height, but his brother is positively magnetic, strength and courage and Mjolnir clasped in his firm grip. Odin rests his hand upon his golden brother's arm, and Loki closes his eyes.

"My brother." Thor says, and Loki breathes, thinks, _sentiment_.

* * *

(Thor looks up, back, where there is a hiss against his skin.

There is only the vague shadow of a figure on the Rainbow Bridge. When he blinks, it is gone.)

* * *

In the throne room, there is a new seat.

He slips past the guards as a shadow, as a breath, as a whisper in the back of their minds and for the first time in what seems an eternity, finds himself alone in the golden hall, inlaid with jewels and rich with power.

The silence hangs, heavy, deafening, bleeding with inactivity.

His steps echo, long and splayed and steady against the marble floor, his feet sure and calm. He finds himself at the base of the steps, and he ascends, eyes closed, the bright light from outside warming his face, his hands open at his sides, as if to receive benediction. _A king, a king,_ he thinks, _a king am I._

_Long live the king._

He draws in a sharp breath with a hiss.

Loki opens his eyes, and the throne is before him.

_This is mine_, he thinks, and the words ring with the finality of truth. _This is mine this is mine this is mine—_

His hand glides across the back of the throne, and he sits.

_Please_, his brother's voice intones, pleading, and he remembers the last time he sat in this very seat, remembers the gold cool against his skin, remembers earth, remembers Odin's sceptre clasped tight in his hand—

_Can I come home?_

Loki Silvertongue stills, curls into himself and suppresses a shudder, tries in vain to not feel the same truth echoed in his flesh.

"Don't." He says out loud, his hand clenching tight.

_Don't_, he thinks.

* * *

In his room, the cavernous, hushed room—

_where he had slept and ate and courted and read, where he had learnt to travel the cosmos, where he had pressed his hand hard to his mouth to stifle the shame once, when Odin had announced Thor to be his heir, his teeth sinking deep into flesh_

In his room, nothing has changed.

The shelves still rose to the ceilings, laden with books, spilling over to the stone ground, the great bear skin spread before his black bed, every candle on every surface lit. And in the middle, his brother sits, Sif at his side.

Loki stops. Stills. Holds his breath.

His brother is thinner, it seems, cheeks hollowed, eyes for once robbed of that light. Sif, standing, is clad in Loki's own colours, the green swept hushed across her skin.

"Are you trysting, lovers?" Loki mouths, and his voice comes out a mere hush of air. "My fickle brother. And what of your mortal down in Midgard?"

He pauses, savouring their silence, raking his eyes hungrily over the length of them.

A long silence. Sif does not reach out to console his brother, but instead raises her eyes skywards, throat working. He thinks he sees a glimmer of a shine in those green eyes, something like a tear. She says, quietly, raw, "what happened?"

_She was my friend_, he remembers. _She loved me. She just loves Thor more._

His lips curl, sneers. _As do they all._

Thor bows his head; his voice is gruff. His hands are not quite steady.

Loki does not see this. He does not see anything he has not calculated for.

"He fell." Thor replies. "He let go."

"He let me go long before that." Loki replies, hissing.

Thor's hands clutch and clench before they finally settle, unmoving, on his thighs. "He's gone, Sif." Thor says again, and his voice is choked, something desperate clogging in his throat. "He's dead."

Sif does not move for a while. Her gaze remains skywards, until finally she swallows, her hands fumbling at the blade at her side. She leaves without another word, steps sure and steady against the marble floors.

Thor bows his head.

Loki's teeth clench, his cheeks caught between them until his mouth is filled with something bitter, something of copper and iron and salt, until his nostrils flare, until he feels he is at the brink again, space sucking at his feet and threatening to pull him in again.

His brother's hands clench into fists, and Loki says, breathes, "Thor."

His illusion shimmers, until he almost becomes corporeal, until he almost has weight. The single name floats, a small, weak thing, in the distance between the two of them, an errant breath, an errant curl of the tongue finding its way towards his brother, halting and fragile.

Thor looks up, his breath expelling from his lungs. "Brother?"

Loki closes his eyes.

A whisper, a hiss; gone.


End file.
